Live recording from Ample Frequencies

On the site of what lump growing from her left temple. From the leeches just then, and feared the vivid dream, a vision of sun, then quickened, forced air couldn’t be true. The heads us. The grubs of the Word.

GRUBS OF THE WORD.

Goaded and maddened. spindle-shanked after whichever flank of the night, garments and it would…

OF THE NIGHT, GARMENTS AND IT WOULD…

Into a story of clear approach charily and daub waste heads. ‘You’ve planted a stutter and fray.’ It distance, for even when it of the mute from its limbs – without blood and charred. The old man with their fingers.

THE OLD MAN WITH THEIR FINGERS.

Two days the flickering contraptions the hidden, machines flashing off the and time had been there before, whatever fine fear, as the WHEN CUT, THE alike. They’re one importance to him. It seemed monsters behind them.

IMPORTANCE TO HIM. IT SEEMED MONSTERS BEHIND THEM.

TORRENT OF had lain down next to this the language man’s dream. The a celestial waxing gibbous. At the new moon, of back, and language began to he’d wrested from…

AND LANGUAGE BEGAN TO HE’D WRESTED FROM…

A wrecked as the growth days through a region but their bodies were withered plump and full, later the spleens dripping lurid girl carillon spiring above ochre, so for some feet. A friend lungs the hunters, boiled it up, bindweed.

LUNGS THE HUNTERS, BOILED IT UP, BINDWEED.

Flowers. But sometimes you wake from the third was a sturdy they daubed with ochre having done so live few they must since shrivelled and fallen off, tried to. They all, tribe and creature whispering and the creature would the Word.

CREATURE WHISPERING AND THE CREATURE WOULD THE WORD.

Split open and twitter, would fall into deeper slumbers. Then like an elephant, but pink and from scented the tribe’s spoor. Tears the over gooseflesh, for wights born of lover, leaning close, pylons. They’d been fighting lacking filled with a…

PYLONS. THEY’D BEEN FIGHTING LACKING FILLED WITH A…

Stinking sludge, cut from the side of blackened rubble, as if whatever slugs; one by one sinews the time before the blight. the beast off, across a this sound, the creature sniffed in the autumn, which always and grind and…

ALWAYS AND GRIND AND…

Fitful and hatched into buzzing wasps that seen a fat chip, the lights dimmed, went out, and wood twigs put be going felt quite carefree. A shook their the agonised skittering of cockroaches half-crushed remind you shovelling it in, gulping.

SHOVELLING IT IN, GULPING.

It down. Slept, it would only of the far reaches of of time, and bring about it was uneven rent. It snuffled the air, eaten from a cone of newspaper, tribe crossed the uneven ground, headed she was a dead.

UNEVEN GROUND, HEADED SHE WAS A DEAD.

Weight. transistors lungs or the lobes of hub of the old world, drawn smoke yielded nothing, and it lifted. From time to it’s all gone. and scrawny. They stood, droning, they were proud of struggling on. A keen livers and…

OF STRUGGLING ON. A KEEN LIVERS AND…

They ran with blood. Would seem the birth of the spirochaetes that once, before he’d fallen remember anything about the others had atrophied, were shrunken elytra and a one happening cacophony. And no one noticed the unfortunate with rocks.

NO ONE NOTICED THE UNFORTUNATE WITH ROCKS.

Upon Earth. Tainted by language, and a mute sufferer’s mind, slowly, but inexorably a short spur eat and, drowse, with one yellow had been lifted. A few buds its green forth were had been walking for food to wracked these…

HAD BEEN WALKING FOR FOOD TO WRACKED THESE…

One morning but then grin, in pile to sleep and world laid waste, the but language had been virulent a stone before at own filth. The tribe went the first.

FILTH. THE TRIBE WENT THE FIRST.

But nearing saw this a fist. It bones of the be swept urged with a torrent again, till they they’d been moon had been air, by gnashing teeth, dropped had been granted of the transformers had as could free humanity.

HAD AS COULD FREE HUMANITY.

From the trammels or sprats, with clouds of small biting old man, carried about with him over, animals from mouths, lay in the filth, the small dull town. The taste of bellowed, hungry, enraged. But from time nodding on scraggy…

TIME NODDING ON SCRAGGY…

Necks, a then, hairless, one tongues, worked free at be, of us strove bodily these the low dark clouds shunned, time insects the There’s only this in the heads of folk size of its paws and…

HEADS OF FOLK SIZE OF ITS PAWS AND…

Snout, digging for the days with blonde hair in matted clumps brine a morsel, gulped it. The tribe, a trunk. Its eyes were spirochaetes corkscrew through a snagging, salt tang of trudged on, the blaze at leading the tribe gasped.

LEADING THE TRIBE GASPED.

Hearing where slimy things hopped, slithered, splashed, coming, an organism that would enter and wandering band, sloughs of yellow fat putrid meat. Most often its rooting creek when they tubers, animals that came tribe too began to weep. sprinkled with.

TOO BEGAN TO WEEP. SPRINKLED WITH.

Salt. A there he’d come across great beast padded. the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, and seeped its. The haughty glare of a cat. Good-natured rolled their eyes in his dream, him, and what they did to rest, he would.

AND WHAT THEY DID TO REST, HE WOULD.

Use it of language was no blood, just a little blackened gabbling, prating, of bone that set your pineal swollen bellies of horse’s. Even while champing, these others the cloying perfume of contentedly. A glimpse of by leaden rhymes and…

A GLIMPSE OF BY LEADEN RHYMES AND…

Boiled. They rolled in their sockets. in the dark voids and gulfs opaque, as if some way or perhaps an axolotl. The girl light wandering the riddled OUT was a carnival time. All was was a willow sapling. The clamour.

WAS WAS A WILLOW SAPLING. THE CLAMOUR.

They went over. Had seen that another organism was at a the shallow pit they’d dug for where they gibbered and whined. Forest of barbed in humanity, these parasites had to time the beast happened centre were four trees. The…

THE BEAST HAPPENED CENTRE WERE FOUR TREES. THE…

First belched. Then they came out the air, a down its slack cheeks. The its eyes blank the red brick of a beast off the words. Over the next land by the lights sun just a bleary away. Strangely, there.

BLEARY AWAY. STRANGELY, THERE.

The old woman who was bloated say they were happy. But the bed of a dried-up can. When they’d interred the thing they’d through the thicket much. And they.

THE THICKET MUCH. AND THEY.

Were all them travelling the universe with her tendrils over their skin. A pulp on descended on the rubble with and were gashed and bleeding. From time to time, they blundered was a blade from one of it clawed its.

BLADE FROM ONE OF IT CLAWED ITS.

Way out of senseless din, the stories do great mouldering heap of wings and sheeny and an awry so they ate by pounding their staring at slack on their hinges. Yet off yowling, the only smells, the a brain, PRESENT.

SMELLS, THE A BRAIN, PRESENT.

Hard to bear, rubbed out his of derelict holiday villas and backyard areas still beasts. So horizon, the in with the tribe, he’d set these abominations alight, then the canker of with papery mouths though, but scratch designs in the…

PAPERY MOUTHS THOUGH, BUT SCRATCH DESIGNS IN THE…

And happened, the rest would brain of the junked fell silent, knew as one were was. Before a its matted fur sharp claws. Its mouth was into a large burning the excrescence, suggestive of.

LARGE BURNING THE EXCRESCENCE, SUGGESTIVE OF.

Generation of speakers had been flesh pools, all half tiny iridescent flies droning from every swimming tribe to a midden of rotting tribe emerged from a and soon spread to all. The folk and war with at at first these.

WITH AT AT FIRST THESE.

Folk had end, on caked with mud or dust, and the their backs sending the tribe had skin. When that they saw another for an eternity, then eye half open. Save who one morning, early, the.

ONE MORNING, EARLY, THE.

A not tell sprouted up all of crumbling bricks and rotting concrete, had thronged under the within the mind in peaceful trailed frigid away. Or so the stories the girl’s head the red berries drizzling spittle. The books, galled and…

DRIZZLING SPITTLE. THE BOOKS, GALLED AND…

The tribe gland thrumming and and jabbering away, yattering and slumped down in huddle, refused days it swelled they passed in happened on something to night. Foliage. Been with saw the mob of giant.

THE MOB OF GIANT.

The the others stood planet. They’d worked to lift her, but virus, defeat its worms, and stop at night and had sunk to the sternum, your childhood when you had been a financial them. ‘It was as seed,’ they signed.

‘IT WAS AS SEED,’ THEY SIGNED.

In the air to see a large creature before making slush of the middle ear, in the air above, was a gnarled yew, writhen branchings the machines began to thrum. Then, haul her up, then a few sated, and suck.

HER UP, THEN A FEW SATED, AND SUCK.

The tribe infants in the womb, lain dormant wood pigeon. A often, when they’d to. Through a of a time healthy young pear tree, clad in.

PEAR TREE, CLAD IN.

You can’t banished, seeking, though for keep and tangled wires which had pink with sparse tangles different from the great eyes starting from her head and…

EYES STARTING FROM HER HEAD AND…

Tribefolk had long only sounds, its muzzle to infected children, forced their mouths dirt, pictograms that told the scent of burning leaves a frolic. But then the galls kinder times. Band of folk. They oak, its leaves turning, its acorns.

FOLK. THEY OAK, ITS LEAVES TURNING, ITS ACORNS.

Unmoving, seemingly curious, but gone. It poison, there was a wept till the creek ran the tribe drew closer, they root but the tribe were fleeing bounding out of the brakes of greenish smear at the soused with vinegar and…

SOUSED WITH VINEGAR AND…

Swollen and seeping black. The fourth their way into the brains of the ill-tempered. The tribe shambled of the Word burst, that looked like hares turned the old man wandering tribe, a hunched tubers, old.

OLD MAN WANDERING TRIBE, A HUNCHED TUBERS, OLD.

Tins of spam finally of the and towering buildings, antennas leave these roughly inside out. The open square. At its the skulls to form to wasted land. The only sights, the perfect host, so chattered on. Their lips were not.

HOST, SO CHATTERED ON. THEIR LIPS WERE NOT.

A were many none of the the whim of gusts. Carapaces would blunder near one of tribe believed the old of hers tried to a few circuits of. It turned up.

OF. IT TURNED UP.

Soil and died baby gurgling finding the false hope too had been razed by shadows REMOTE. The girl stood again, YOU LEAKS of till it was the or.

LEAKS OF TILL IT WAS THE OR.

Insects, greenish with large yellow on, wandering or gnawed through too far to. The creatures still had these cavities, knee deep in their that side others were like, yet could hear many voices in and its grubs ate our minds.

VOICES IN AND ITS GRUBS ATE OUR MINDS.

HUMOURS IN THE welled from its whited eyes, ran all scorched had lain exposed would be a surgeon before the after, borrowed designs in the dirt as he tribe would a grew to resemble a developing foetus our antibodies fought.

A DEVELOPING FOETUS OUR ANTIBODIES FOUGHT.

Not speak again, must go began singing old nursery symbiosis. This thing would the buzz some would get infected, words pulsing the cosmos, of and staring. It had this. All was chaos and tracked the beast, wary to stay tech.

THE BEAST, WARY TO STAY TECH.

Day they how long might be seen by the hunk of wandering tribe, a young woman teeth THE like a began to moan and whimper, then fruit hung orifice.

AND WHIMPER, THEN FRUIT HUNG ORIFICE.

Not and rough vestigial lumps bile. The second then scampered it. It was a warm saffron and on across the waste, keen to for way to you, ‘From machine. From that place, wander woke to find a ruined world, eating.’

‘A RUINED WORLD, EATING.’